soapboxdiner

Jacks and Cracks

Hehe. That Cptn, she's one helluva funny lady. Her entry today reminded me of a funny (to me) story from the way back. Mayhaps you'd like it, too.

Way back in the day, say 1993, I was a shift leader at Jack in the Box. You all know JITB, right? Well, it was just a swell place to work.

Anyway, way back in the day when I was working at The Crack as we affectionately called it, there happened to be a nasty storm that thrust half the city into a three-day power outage. To make it worse, the storm occurred immediately following all that horrible business with the E. coli outbreak. Unfortunately for those of us living in the city, the little corner our Crack resided on was pretty much the only one that still had power. Coincidence? I think not, my friends. I'm pretty sure God just wanted to torment and torture - me - specifically.

Now when the E. coli outbreak happened, all our beef was recalled and replaced with wafer thin nasty dehydrated beef food substitute. I don't think what we were shipped could rightly be called a real meat product. But the cold and wary souls coming to us seeking a little nourishment during that time of blackness, they didn't know any of that. And so, bless their worrying selves, each and every single person who pulled their vehicle up to the microphone would ask, "Am I going to die if I eat here?"

I found this to be a very odd thing to ask. Even if a person did not know about the recall and replacement of all beef-like products with genetically altered Beef Food Stuff, if I were that concerned soul, I would be more apt to avoid the potential entirely rather than risk my health based on the word some undoubtedly angry and bitter minimum-wage earning fast food worker.

But lo, come they did, and to each and every car, I was instructed to recite a five-minute speil thanking the customer for their patronage, apologizing for any and all concern they might have, and reassuring them that everything was fine now. Did I mention this all had to occur in that foriegn language called legalese? Uh huh. That too.

And you know, a person can only take that for so long before a little piece of them cracks. Thinking to myself, if you're worried, dear, then my very best humanitarian advice for you would be... DON'T COME HERE AND ASK STUPID QUESTIONS WHEN IT'S ULTIMATELY YOU & YOUR FAMILY'S HEALTH WE'RE DISCUSSING!

But a person can't really say that, right?

At last, midnight of Power Outage Day Three came, and SBD broke. Now nobody eats dinner at midnight. This wasn't an immobilized refugee seeking a bit of porridge to ease the distension of malnutrition. This was a guttonous fast food heathen sent by all the evil forces in the world to me, to irritate and otherwise harangue me!

And he asked, "Are you going to kill me if I order a cheeseburger?"

Can you hear the cracking? Can you hear the sna-aa-apping for my last nerve? Oh the pain.

And so I told the concerned gentleman, "Oh, probably. You never know. Depends on which of these burgers you select. Would you like Heads, or Tails?"

And God bless him, he took heads. I guess he didn't care about E. coli nearly as much as he originally thought.

3:16 pm - 12.01.02
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